Data By The Minute: A Stunning Reality

Staff - August 23, 2018

What did people do to fill their days before the internet became a part of our everyday lives? The latest numbers showing time spent on internet-related activities begs the question because the calculations from this year alone are staggering.

An article by digital strategist Ayaz Nanji on the site MarketingProfs.com uses research from Domo and other sources to report that during each minute of the day internet users watch 4.3 million YouTube videos, conduct 3.9 million Google searches, stream 92,222 hours of content on Netflix, make 176,220 calls on Skype and send 12,986,111 texts and 473,400 tweets.

It’s no wonder that people are constantly looking at their phones and other devices. Online purchases are keeping up too, with Amazon reporting it ships 1,111 packages every minute of the day.

As the number of online purchases continues to rise, Statista predicts a 246.15 percent increase in worldwide ecommerce sales, from $1.3 trillion in 2014 to $4.5 trillion in 2021.

The steady rise in online sales is increasingly evident in the promotional products industry as well. PPAI’s 2017 Sales Volume Study reported that online sales represented almost a quarter of total industry sales—nearly $5.4 billion—transacted through distributors. With speed and convenience, this trend shows no sign of slowing down. Industry companies not currently offering an ecommerce option for purchasing promotional products should consider developing a strategy to get online sooner rather than later.